Diamonds, Cats, and Bats
by Kat Lee formerly Pirate Turner
Summary: Diamonds aren't really a girl's best friend, but Catwoman knows what/who is. Het.


Title: "Diamonds, Cats, and Bats"  
Author: Kat Lee  
Rating: PG-13/T  
Summary: Diamonds aren't really a girl's best friend, but Catwoman knows what/who is.  
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, names, codenames, places, items, fandoms, titles, and etc. are always © & TM their respective owners, not the author, and are used without permission. Any and all original characters and everything else is © & TM the author and may not be reproduced in any way without the author's express, written permission. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.

She purrs as she twirls through her bedroom, opening her bags and letting their stolen contents spill across her territory. Cats of all colors twirl around her spinning, leather-clad legs, rubbing their furry tails and heads against the human woman who is mother to them all while meowing. They are happy, because she is happy. For now, in their world, that is all that matters.

The room is filled with glitter as Catwoman dances to her bed, her legs entwining perfectly with no less than forty other, and much smaller, legs. She continues to spin, letting the diamonds fall where they will. Her floor, her dresser, her chair, and her bed are all soon covered in the color she loves most: the glittering silver that means money, riches, and, thereby, freedom. A diamond even dangles over her furchildren's food bowl while another hangs over the top of their water bowl. The cats bat at them playfully, never knowing or caring how much they are worth.

Still purring, Selina falls with leisure across her bed. The ten cats closest to her immediately join her. Her lithe body curls around theirs, but she barely notices the tiny, pink tongues licking her bared toes. She's too happy with her other prizes tonight. She's made such a haul that she shouldn't have to worry about food for any of them for the rest of the year and can also drop another grand or two to her favorite feline charity.

Well, her second favorite, any way. Her first is always herself, and she, and any one else with half a brain, knows that she does more for the cats who are thrown away all throughout the world than any organization ever will. She does more, because she's not afraid of anything. She's not afraid to break the law or to bend nature to her will. She's not afraid to risk everything or go up against any odds when she knows that her means are the most righteous cause in all the world. Let the Batman protect the sniveling humans who could help themselves if they could only be bothered; she will always protect and save the true innocents, no matter the costs.

Diamonds surely do help with those costs, though. They help to take care of her babies and herself in the most splendid of conditions, to feed her furchildren and make sure they get all the medications and care they need. They help to keep them constantly buying new abodes so that they can stay on the move and never be found. They help to make her happy, she admits silently as she bats at a large diamond hanging down from the luxurious canopy she allowed herself on this bed - just for the sheer delight of shredding it on the rare occasion that Bruce does come over.

Then, as he always does, he enters her mind. She tells herself she glimpsed the Batsignal hovering in the sky from beyond her open curtains or that she heard a siren. It doesn't matter why she's thinking of him now. What matters is that she is, and she remembers.

She remembers having to fight him again. She remembers his determination to not understand her cause and always stop her, even when she's in the right. They have teamed together, but it's been a rare case, rarer even than the largest and purest of these diamonds she stole tonight. Too often, she's in the right, but he's too blinded by his own cause to see it.

One hand goes to her cheek while the other continues to toy absently with the diamond above her. He hit her tonight with more strength than usual, hit her so hard that his punch will surely have left its mark by morning's light. She mews softly, and every furry head immediately looks up in concern at the sad note in her voice. The cats surrounding her already press closer while the rest run immediately to join her and get as close to her as they can.

They're all purring, but she still feels the pain that he manages to invoke in her every time they're together. It isn't the hit, any of them or the kicks, or the way he flipped her over his head like she was a weak kitten. It isn't any physical pain, and it's a pain she's tired of feeling, has told herself time and again that she won't feel again, and yet keeps returning. It's a pain in a heart that she's told him she no longer has.

Why, she roars inwardly, why can he not see what she does is right?! Why does he continue to protect those who have riches who do not deserve them, those who kill, who torture, who maim babies?! A blind cat bumps her cheek, the same one Batman hit earlier, and Selina wants to growl, not at her babies, never at her babies, but at him for he stood between her and the revenge she should have been able to exact on the human monster who prodded out this baby's eyes with a fire iron. It's a wonder the little one's even alive, and she wouldn't be if not for Selina or, rather, for Catwoman, who had been in the right place at the right time and would have ripped that bastard apart if not for Batman stepping in to save his life.

Selina growls, her teary, emerald eyes flashing with otherwise silent fury. If she had had the tail she should have been born with, it would have now been flashing with fury, thumping all over the bed that's worn the marks already of their lovemaking. She can't shake the damn Bat, yet he continues to hang over her like a shadow, like the shadow that threatens all of Gotham City's true innocents.

Her fury builds swiftly until Catwoman leaps from her bed and, hissing, tears the canopy to shreds. She won't rebuild it this time, she swears, and she won't attempt to rebuild her relationship with the Bat, either. There can be no relationship with one who protects monsters and tries to stop a woman from saving and supporting her children. There can be nothing between them but wild sex and pain, and after a while, the pain is no longer worth the passion.

An unique diamond drops before Selina's narrowed, emerald eyes. She almost hadn't bothered with this jewel for it's not a true diamond. She had taken it only out of the knowledge that her babies would adore its tiny, ball-like shape. Now it spins and sparkles in front of her eyes, held down by the outstretched paw of the tabby perched on the highest point of her bed that still remains.

It spins and sparkles. Selina mews, cocks her head to one side, and finds the Bat, at last, finally slipping away again from her mind. Like her children, she, too, likes shiny objects, especially those which dangle so temptingly before her. She reaches out and slaps the diamond. Its spinning sparkles even more brightly as it twirls faster around and around, and she bats it again.

Slowly, she slinks back onto her bed, her anger seeping out and the diamond, and her feline friend, dropping ever closer. Her children again press into her sides, and Selina's sanity, what fragile sanity she has left after all she's suffered throughout her nine lives, slowly returns with their purring and calming presence. She smiles as she bats at the ball-diamond and swears again that the Bat will no longer have any power over her.

She thinks of the old cliche that diamonds are a girl's best friend. She thought of it earlier, too, but hadn't believed it any more than she does now, though for different reasons. Cats are a girl's best friend. They are the only beings who stand beside her through thick and thin, always returning to her side as soon as they can or she allows it. She can whisper all her secrets to them and never hear a single one repeated.

Diamonds do come close, however. Like cats, they can entertain and comfort, and unlike the dreaded Bat, whose alter ego she'd once wanted for her very special friend, they don't hurt. They don't cut unless used in the wrong hands or held too tightly, and even then, it's only the flesh they harm, never the heart or soul. She smiles, resumes her purring, and continues to play with her diamonds while relaxing in the comfort zone of her clowder. Cats are truly a girl's best friend, but diamonds do make for a good, steady, and trustworthy second, far better than any bat ever could or would.

**The End**


End file.
